by Gina Ardito
Beautiful Mommy
Loving, Giving, Wonderful
Greatest in the World
Our teacher, Mrs. Hirsch, had just finished laminating mine when Ben Cahill, who sits at the desk next to me, read over my shoulder.
“Greatest in the world,” he sneered.
Did I mention I hate Ben Cahill? I know that’s not nice, but Ben’s a bully. He’s not happy unless he’s making somebody cry. I guessed this particular day, he targeted me.
“Your mom’s not the greatest in the world,” he said.
I held my project against my chest to keep it out of his sight. “She is to me,” I retorted. “And she was to my dad.”
“Your dad didn’t love her or you,” Ben said in that same nasty tone. “That’s why he tried to kill you.”
“He did not!” Ben was a brat. What a horrible thing to say!
“Did, too. My mom said he was in jail for years before he died.”
“You’re a liar, Ben. My dad was away, working, in another country. My mom and grandma and grandpa all told me.”
He screwed up his face like an evil clown. “They only told you that because they don’t want you to know the truth. They didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
Mrs. Hirsch stepped between us before I could punch him. “That’s enough, Benjamin. Both of you, take your seats.”
That’s enough? Why didn’t she tell him to stop making up stories about my mom and dad? It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true! Daddy had loved us. I remember how Mommy had cried the night the police came to the house. If Daddy was a bad man—in jail—Mom wouldn’t have done that.
All through math and spelling, I kept thinking about what Ben had said. It couldn’t be true. Why would Mom and Grandma lie? Ben was just a mean boy who wanted to make me cry. It couldn’t be true.
At recess, Ben and two of his bully friends, Scott and Bobby, circled around me, calling me “Jail baby,” and throwing rocks. Again, Mrs. Hirsch sent them away, but never said anything to make them stop saying the mean things about my mom and dad and me. Tears stung my eyes, and I was bleeding from a rock that hit my ankle, so I walked closer to the fence at the other end of the building to be alone. I didn’t want Ben or anyone else to see he’d made me cry.
From this corner of the school, I could see the back parking lot of the Gull and Oar. All of a sudden, I didn’t want to be in school anymore. I wanted to be in the G & O’s kitchen, away from boys like Ben, away from Mrs. Hirsch. I didn’t want to take my history test this afternoon. I didn’t want to go to the afterschool program where the room smelled like feet and Ben would keep telling his mean stories about me and my family. And I definitely didn’t want to talk to Mommy or Grandma until I knew who was telling the truth.
Keeping an eye on Mrs. Hirsch and the rest of my class on the playground, I crept toward a certain section of the fence where I knew someone had cut the chain link. The cut space wasn’t wide, and the metal scratched my arms when I squeezed through, but I kept quiet and stayed really low. No one even noticed I wasn’t on the playground. I ran to the edge of the Hercules’ Club trees, careful to avoid the thorns. Mrs. Hirsch had her back to me now as she refereed a soccer game in the field beyond the swings. I made it to the corner, turned around to make sure no one noticed me, and raced across the street into the restaurant parking lot.
There was a blue and white striped awning attached to one side of the building where the guys who parked the cars hung out to be safe from the weather. Since the restaurant wouldn’t open to customers for another three hours, no one was there. Except me. I would wait here until Chef Colin showed up to open the kitchen for tonight’s dinner service. Maybe he knew if I was really a “jail baby.”
Lucinda
I’d just stepped out of the shower when the phone in my bedroom rang. Wrapping a towel around my still wet frame, I strode out of the bathroom. “Okay, okay,” I said. “I’m coming.”
I took my time because I was pretty sure it would turn out to be a salesman or wrong number on the other end of that incessant ringing. I grabbed the receiver off the cradle and wedged it between my shoulder and my ear. “Hello?”
“Ms. Soto?”
Here we go. I was right. Somebody trying to sell me something. Blowing out an exasperated breath, I replied, “Yes?”
“This is Mrs. Warren at Snug Harbor Elementary. I’m afraid we’ve got a problem.”
My blood froze. All I heard were snippets of the principal’s report: Ariana absent after recess, must have left school property, confrontation with a classmate regarding her father. A scream rose in my throat, and I jammed a fist into my mouth to keep from releasing the anguish. Sinking to my knees on the carpet, I surrendered to an onslaught of panic. Oh God, oh God, oh God. My baby’s missing. What am I going to do? Who do I call? Where did she go?
“We’ve contacted the police, but we’re hoping you might know where she might have gone.”
Where? Where would she go? Only one place echoed in my head. The restaurant. Right across the street! Of course, she’d go there. But none of the staff would be there to open the G & O for at least another hour. Would she wait around ‘til then? “Tell them to check the Gull and Oar Restaurant across the street,” I said. “I’m on my way.”
I hung up and dialed another number while scrambling through my dresser drawers for clothes. He picked up on the second ring. “Well, hello there,” came his smooth, silken voice.
“Colin! Ari’s missing!”
Smooth silk hardened to frozen steel. “What? When? What happened?”
As I struggled into underwear with the phone once again wedged between my ear and shoulder, I gave him the rapid rundown from what I had pieced together of Mrs. Warren’s phone call. Something someone said about her father, boys teasing her, she somehow slipped away during recess, they’d called the police, and the school was in lockdown.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I need you to come get me to take me to the school, but if she’s at the restaurant, you could get there much faster. Faster than the police. And she trusts you. She’ll talk to you. But I need to be at the school. I need to find her. I can’t wait here. The bus will take forever. I don’t know what to do.” I shoved my legs into jeans and tumbled onto the floor when my foot got caught in one of the cuffs. “Colin, help me, please. I don’t know what to do.”
“Breathe, sweetheart. It’s gonna be okay. She’s probably there. You and I both know she’s probably there. I’m going to call Linda and have her swing by to pick you up. She’ll take you to the school. I’ll head over to the restaurant and check it out. If I find her, I’ll call you back. Okay?”
I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. My baby. Where was my baby?
“Lucie, you hear me? Come on, honey, answer me.”
Intelligent conversation abandoned me. I had nothing left but the barest faculties. Every thought in my head focused on my little girl, on how she must be hurting, and how scared she might be, and where she might be.
“Lucie, answer me!”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I check out the G & O. I promise.”
“Uh...” I couldn’t utter another sound. The fear took over, and I curled up on the floor, hugging my knees to my chest and wailing.
Ariana
Police cars pulled into the bus circle at the school, sirens screaming and red and white lights flashing. Uh-oh. I shrank back behind the dumpster in the restaurant’s parking lot so no one would see me. A white and gray seagull stood on the edge above me, staring down with its yellowish eyes.
My fault. They were coming to find me. I probably shouldn’t have walked away from school because now, I was going to be in a lot of trouble.
Oh, boy. The tears fell from my eyes faster than I could wipe them away. I’d really messed up this time. Mom was gonna kill me. I wished I hadn’t done it. I should’ve just told Ben to shut up and stayed at school. I was so stupid. Everyone was going to be mad. Mom would hate me
, and so would Grandma and Grandpa and Chef Colin.
I don’t know how long I sat there, crying, scared the police would take me to jail when they found me. Jail. Had my dad really been in jail? Was he really a bad man? Did he try to kill me and my mom? Did he hate us? What had we done wrong?
The crunch of tires pulling into the gravel parking lot made me sneak a peek around the corner of the dumpster. A black car parked near the employees’ entrance. Please, let it be Chef Colin’s car. Please. Please. Please.
“Ari?”
Yes! I raced toward him, the tears drying on my cheeks, and launched myself into his open arms.
He picked me up and squeezed me. “Oh, princess, what were you thinking? Your mom’s worried sick about you!”
“I’m sorry.” I buried my face into his neck. I never wanted him to let me go. “It was stupid. Please don’t let the police take me to jail.”
“No one’s gonna take you to jail,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go inside, I’ll make some calls, and then you and I are going to talk. Okay?”
Still nestled into him, I nodded.
He shifted me to one arm so I could ride on his hip while he juggled his keys in the other hand. The car beeped when he hit the lock button, and he carried me to the entrance door, which he unlocked and opened, then set me down inside. “In my office, princess. Now.”
I didn’t argue. I couldn’t. If I did what Chef Colin said, maybe Mom wouldn’t punish me too badly.
Inside his office, he pointed to the chair across from his desk. “Sit. I have to call your mom and your school and let everyone know you’re okay.”
He started with my mom. “I’ve got her, Lucie,” he said into the phone.
Even from across the room, I heard Mom’s shout, “Oh, thank God. Thank you, Colin. Oh my God. Thank you. Is she all right? She’s not hurt, is she?”
“She’s okay. A little shaken up, and I think she realizes she made a huge mistake.” Kneeling beside me, he gave me a very stern look, but squeezed my knee, I guess to let me know everything was gonna be okay.
Mom said something else but she must have calmed down a little because I couldn’t make out what she asked next.
“Yeah,” he said into the phone. “I’ll keep her with me for now. You call the school. The cops can stop by here if they want to verify she’s safe and sound. Are you and Linda on your way?”
Mom said something else.
“Good. See you in a bit.”
He hung up and folded his arms over his chest, that stern look redirected at me. “Okay, princess. Wanna talk about it?”
“I’m sorry,” I said again and stared at my sneakers.
“You don’t have to apologize to me. You might have to apologize to your teacher and the police. And you definitely owe your mother a major apology. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” I admitted. “One of the boys in my class said some stuff I didn’t like, and I got upset. I didn’t want anyone to see me cry, so I just…ran.”
“What did the boy say?”
I started to cry again and shook my head. I didn’t want to tell him. What if it was true? If he found out that Dad hated me and Mom so much that he tried to kill us, would he hate us, too? “I’m sorry,” I repeated instead. “I’ll be good, I promise. I won’t ever do this again. I’ll be really good. Please don’t be mad. And please don’t blame Mommy. It’s not her fault I ran away.”
He squeezed my knee again. “I’m not blaming anyone, sweetheart. Tell me what happened. What did the boy say?”
“Just something stupid.”
A sudden knock on the front door made me jump.
“Easy,” Chef Colin said. “That’s probably the police.”
I gripped his hand, terrified that they’d come to take me away. “They’re not going to arrest me, are they?”
“No.” He got up. “They’re going to want to talk to you, to make sure you’re not hurt, but they’re definitely not going to arrest you.”
“Are you sure?” What if they changed their minds and decided to arrest me after they talked to me?
“I’m sure. Your mom already talked to them. She told them you were safe with me until she got here. They’re going to want to be one hundred percent sure of that, since I’m not listed in your school records as an authorized guardian—an error we plan to fix ASAP.” He pointed a finger at me. “In the meantime, stay put. I’ll be right back.”
Lucinda
Every minute that passed before I got to the G & O and Ariana aged me another year. Along with the thousand questions running through my brain about why she’d run off was eternal gratitude to Colin for keeping a sane head when I’d lost my grip on reality. If not for him, I’d probably still be curled up on my bedroom floor mumbling to myself. For God’s sake, I had planned to take the bus to look for my daughter!
For her part, Linda drove like the bulls of Pamplona chased us. She didn’t try to make small talk or waste her breath on useless platitudes. We both stayed quiet, each lost in our own thoughts. Broken white lines on the highway zipped by at dizzying speed until we hit Main Street, where the intermittent traffic lights and crosswalks slowed us down to a more human pace.
“Left or right?” she asked when we reached the corner.
In other words, did I want to go to the school or the restaurant first? No contest. “Right,” I told her.
The principal and the teachers—even the cops—could wait. Right now, I needed to hold my baby girl. Was this what Colin had meant last week when he told me he had to drive me to school because he had to make sure I was real? Because I wouldn’t stop shaking until I had Ariana safe in my arms.
Linda pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot, and I doubt she had the car at a full stop before I bailed, feet flying toward the rear entrance. “Slow down!” she called after me. “Take a breath or two. Otherwise, you’ll overreact when you see her.”
Excellent advice. Colin had said she was shaken up and knew she’d made a mistake. If I didn’t calm down, if I was too upset when I saw her, she’d clam up and I’d never find out what set her off. I yanked open the door, stepped into the dim foyer of the restaurant, and breathed in the aroma of garlic and roasting meat that lingered like a phantom.
Conversation hummed from the kitchen. Two voices, one low and sultry, the other high-pitched and a little too loud. Cooking. Colin had kept her calm by bringing her into the kitchen for some one-on-one cooking time. I shook my head in amazement. How quickly he’d learned how best to handle my twisting emotions, as well as Ari’s.
Not wanting to startle them in case they were working with high heat or sharp utensils, I slipped to the door and peered through the window. Ari stood on a stool at the pastry station, using a piping bag to fill eclairs with sweet custard.
“He said...” Her voice rose with outrage. “He said...my dad didn’t love me and Mom. That he tried to kill us and that’s why he went to jail.”
Oh, sweet crap on a cracker. Who would’ve been that vicious, to share such nasty gossip with a child? And in such a heartless way?
“Is it true? Did Mommy and Grandma and Grandpa lie to me?”
My conscience ripped in two, and I winced. My poor little girl. She must be so confused, feel so betrayed.
“I think you’re going to have to ask your mom about that,” Colin replied.
Yeah. My sin, my confession. He was a smart man to detour around that crime scene.
Frowning, she set the piping bag on the counter. “I shouldn’t have told you what Ben said.”
“Of course you should tell me. How will I help you if I don’t know what happened?”
“Yeah, but, if it’s true…if my own dad hated us so much he tried to hurt us, then you won’t love us, either. No one will ever love Mom and me. We must be very bad people.”
I was ready to push my way inside, to set my little girl straight, when Colin cupped her cheeks in his hands. “You listen to me, princess. Your dad loved you. And he loved your mom, too. But
he got sick in his brain shortly after you were born. He did things he would never have done if he was well. And what your dad did had nothing to do with you or your mom. That’s why no one told you. Because your mom and your grandparents didn’t want you to hate your dad for something he couldn’t help. You can hate the sickness that made him try to hurt you and your mom, but that wasn’t who he was in his heart, and it had nothing to do with you or how he felt about you. Okay?”
Her eyes rounded, and a tremulous smile touched her lips. “Okay.”
“Good.” He pulled her into his beefy embrace. “And for the record,” he continued as he rocked her in his arms, “I have loved both you and your mother from the first time I saw each of you—ten years apart.”
“Does Mommy know that?”
“She does now,” I said as I strode inside.
Both heads perked up, and now both wore broad smiles.
“Mommy!” Ariana’s smile weakened a bit, and she climbed off the stool, head bowed as she inched toward me. “I’m sorry I left school like that.”
I wrapped her in a tight hug and felt the last of my tension drain from me in a flood. “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, I just want to hold you and tell you I love you. No matter what. It’s always you and me against the world, kiddo.”
“And Chef Colin,” she added.
I looked up into his eyes, and the last vestiges of my former hard shell cracked and fell away. “And Chef Colin,” I agreed. “If he’ll have us.”
“Have you?” He wrapped his arms around both of us, creating a circle of love. “You’re all I ever wanted.”
